Prosecutors name victim in investigation into Žemaitaitis Facebook post

LRT reports that one person has been recognised as a victim in a pretrial investigation into a Facebook post by Remigijus Žemaitaitis, a member of parliament and leader of the Nemunas Dawn party.

Gintarė Vitkauskaitė-Šatkauskienė, chief specialist at the Communication Division of the General Prosecutor’s Office, confirmed the information to ELTA.

“The pretrial investigation into suspected defamation and other actions by R. Žemaitaitis that may show signs of hate-related offences is continuing. One person has been recognised as a victim in this investigation,” she said.

No one has been formally charged at this stage, she added.

The investigation was launched in May after prosecutors examined complaints from European Parliament member Dainius Žalimas and another applicant concerning information and statements publicly posted on a Facebook account registered in Žemaitaitis’s name.

According to Žalimas, Žemaitaitis shared an image of a protest participant’s poster that had been manipulated using artificial intelligence and later publicly humiliated the woman. Žalimas said the politician used vulgar sexual comments to insult her, encouraged mockery and actively joined in, escalating the situation.

Another pretrial investigation into Žemaitaitis’s statements about the signatories of Lithuania’s March 11 Act of Independence is also continuing.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the investigation, launched in March, concerns suspected public approval of international crimes and the denial or gross trivialisation of crimes committed by the Soviet Union. Investigators are carrying out planned procedural actions. No one has been formally charged and no victims have been identified in that case.

Žemaitaitis said in an interview on the OpTV programme hosted by Rūta Janutienė that the signatories of the March 11 Act of Independence should be called participants in an uprising because the restoration of independence had been a coup that overthrew Soviet rule.

Janutienė questioned the claim, but Žemaitaitis repeated that it had been an uprising that overthrew the existing system. He later said he apologised for using the word “coup”.

Meanwhile, investigators probing the circumstances of car rentals for the Nemunas Dawn party searched the homes of five party members of parliament on Tuesday: Robertas Puchovičius, Kęstutis Bilius, Daiva Žebelienė, Lina Šukytė-Korsakė and Tadas Sadauskis.

The prosecutor’s office said the searches were conducted to collect data relevant to the investigation. Kelmė District Mayor Ildefonsas Petkevičius also confirmed that officers from the Financial Crimes Investigation Service visited Žemaitaitis’s office in the municipal building on Tuesday.